Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) has introduced an affordable shaped fibre offering that will transform the way people do business in future. Utilising its long-haul route from KwaZulu-Natal to Gauteng, licensed service providers can now pay by the gigabit-per-second rather than for a full fibre pair.
DFA's CEO, Gustav Smit, says this offering should result in massive cost savings compared to what was offered before, especially compared to what is available in the 'managed services' market at the moment.
Customers will pay a fixed monthly lease, based on the transmission speed they need, and the fibre comes with the same trusted, high-quality monitoring and maintenance service for which DFA is renowned.
DFA's extensive metro fibre networks in Gauteng and Durban are linked to the long-haul connection points in Pretoria and Durban. This means that points of presence in these metro areas can easily be linked to the long-haul route.
Smit says long-haul bandwidth can be extremely expensive and can easily increase operating costs and eat into one's profit. "Now there is an alternative, shaped fibre from DFA. With our shaped fibre offering, you can lease a dedicated, dark fibre pair between any two repeaters on our long-haul route between Durban and Pretoria."
The new shaped fibre will cost between R200 000 and R500 000 per month for up to 1Gbps and 5Gbps, respectively. This is a price reduction of 78% on the 1Gbps option. However, should customers exceed 5Gbps, the current unlimited option, at R900 000 per month, will apply.
He says it is important to note that DFA does not light fibre or sell managed services. "Customers still install their own equipment on our dark fibre, but they only pay for the speeds at which they transmit their data. We know that many of our clients could benefit from connections on this route, but that their bandwidth requirements don't necessarily justify a full-capacity fibre channel."
Customers may install and use any transmission equipment on DFA's long-haul fibre. DFA's technical experts are available to assist customers to plan their transmission networks optimally.
Furthermore, as a standard service, DFA monitors its fibre network for faults around the clock from its dedicated Network Operations Centre, in Rivonia, Johannesburg. Its uptime is far above the industry standard, but in the unlikely event that fibre faults do occur, DFA will repair it well within the standard agreement of four hours.
"Our long-haul optical fibre route has repeater sites in several cities and towns, starting in Persequor Park, in Pretoria. It runs through Bronkhorstspruit, Middelburg, Hendrina, Busby Mills, Piet Retief, Paulpietersburg, Vryheid, Witrand, Melmoth, Empangeni, via the SEACOM Landing Station in Mtunzini, and terminates at Teraco, in Riverhorse Valley, Durban," he concludes.
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Dark Fibre Africa (DFA)
Dark Fibre Africa (DFA), a local open access dark fibre infrastructure provider, specialises in the financing, building and installation of carrier-neutral, open access ducting infrastructure. The company started rolling out its network in metropolitan areas in October 2007 and has already laid in excess of 6 180km of infrastructure that is open to all licensed players, on equal terms.
This infrastructure is commissioned by licensed telecoms and Internet operators, which provide high-speed voice, data and video services to customers. The underlying business principle is that of an independent 'open access' infrastructure. With DFA acting purely as landlord, the infrastructure is entirely operator-neutral and does not differentiate between users.
The basis of the model is that DFA is building and managing a first-class physical infrastructure for any licensed operator to take advantage of. Licensed operators now have a ready-made infrastructure on which to build their differentiating converged services, bringing these services to market quicker, thereby enjoying earlier revenue generation.
There is a state-of-the-art network monitoring centre in Rivonia (Johannesburg) that provides operators with outsourced fibre network management services and offers continuous communication with clients, should the unthinkable incident occur. Any service provider, licensed to do so by ICASA, may rent fibres from DFA for their own transmission and backbone infrastructure purposes.
DFA assumes the role of physical infrastructure developer, funds the rollout, and on completion, provides all operators with a first-class, secure ducting infrastructure on which licensed operators can build their services. The deployment of metro and long-haul open access ducting, optimised for fibre network deployment, will enable larger users of communications capacity to enjoy logical separation and ownership of communications capacity, while sharing the same physical right of way and access routes with other carriers.
DFA is extremely proud of claiming the prestigious 'New Entrant of the Year' award at the annual AfricaCom awards ceremony in 2009. In 2010, DFA was awarded the 'Best Cost Efficiency Solution for Africa' for the 'Fibre to the Tower'. The AfricaCom awards recognise excellence and outstanding performance in the African telecommunications industry over a 12-month period.
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